Banksia born to burn
Open Access
- 9 March 2011
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Wiley in New Phytologist
- Vol. 191 (1), 184-196
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8137.2011.03663.x
Abstract
• Historical evidence of recurrent fire in many of the world’s biomes suggests that fire may have had profound evolutionary influences on their extant floras. However, the role of fire as a selective force in the origin and evolution of plant traits remains controversial. • Using Bayesian Monte-Carlo-Markov-Chain procedures and calibration points from the fossil record, we generated a dated phylogeny for the iconic Australian genus Banksia, and reconstructed the evolutionary/chronological position of five putatively fire-related traits. • The fire-dependent trait, on-plant seed storage (serotiny), and associated fire-enhancing trait, dead floret retention, co-originated with the first appearance of Banksia 60.8 million yr ago (Palaeocene). Whether nonsprouting or resprouting is ancestral was indeterminable, but the first banksias were nonclonal. Derived traits, such as dead leaf retention (fire-enhancing) and clonality (underground budbanks; fire-avoiding), first appeared 26–16 million yr ago (Miocene) with the onset of seasonal drought and thus more frequent fire, and culminated in dead florets/bracts completely covering the persistent fruits in some species. • Thus, fire may have been a selective force in the very origin of Banksia 40 million yr before the onset of climate seasonality in the Miocene, and continued to have an impact on the direction of evolution, favouring traits consistent with adaptation to an increasingly (sometimes less) fire-prone environment.Keywords
This publication has 56 references indexed in Scilit:
- The Origins of C 4 Grasslands: Integrating Evolutionary and Ecosystem ScienceScience, 2010
- Ancestral state reconstruction reveals multiple independent evolution of diagnostic morphological characters in the "Higher Oribatida" (Acari), conflicting with current classification schemesBMC Evolutionary Biology, 2010
- Recent assembly of the Cerrado, a neotropical plant diversity hotspot, by in situ evolution of adaptations to fireProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2009
- OCBIL theory: towards an integrated understanding of the evolution, ecology and conservation of biodiversity on old, climatically buffered, infertile landscapesPlant and Soil, 2009
- Contrasted patterns of hyperdiversification in Mediterranean hotspotsProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2009
- BEAST: Bayesian evolutionary analysis by sampling treesBMC Evolutionary Biology, 2007
- The diversification of Paleozoic fire systems and fluctuations in atmospheric oxygen concentrationProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2006
- An assessment of old and new DNA sequence evidence for the paraphyly of Banksia with respect to Dryandra (Proteaceae)Australian Systematic Botany, 2005
- The Southwest Australian Floristic Region: Evolution and Conservation of a Global Hot Spot of BiodiversityAnnual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 2004
- Green cotyledons of two Hakea species control seedling mass and morphology by supplying mineral nutrients rather than organic compoundsNew Phytologist, 2002